Mike Shellenberger, President of Environmental Progress and Time Magazine ‘Hero of the Environment’, appeared dismayed when he tweeted here that Germany CO2 emissions rose over 1% in 2015, as the following chart shows:

In 2015 Germany’s Co2 emissions rose to 912 million tonnes, up from 902 million tonnes from a year earlier and from 906 million tonnes way back in 2009. Overall Germany’s CO2 emissions savings have trended slightly upwards over the past 7 years.

Megan Darby at Climate Home here calls the development “a blow to the country’s claims to climate leadership“.

Schellenberger has every reason to be shocked by the 2015 result.

1. 2015 was Germany’s second warmest year on record, meaning fuel consumed for heating had to have been low.

2. Germany has invested tens of billions of euros in its bid to switch to CO2-free energy sources. Angela Merkel top aide Peter Altmaier warned that the Energiewende would cost 1 trillion euros.

3. Consumers, who were once into thinking it wasn’t going to cost much, are now paying close to the highest electricity prices worldwide. One kilowatt-hour costing close to €30 cents. Hundreds of thousands of households are having their power cut off because they can no longer afford to pay their power bills.

4. Germany power grid is now more unstable than it has been in decades. That fact in combination with the high electricity prices is driving industry out.

5. Germany’s per capita CO2 emissions are among the highest in the world.

6. About half of Germany’s CO2 reductions since 1990 resulted from the shut-down of former communist East Germany’s inefficient state-run industry.

7. Wind parks have blighted much of the country’s idyllic landscape and thousands of people are now suffering from health damage due to infrasound. Planned windparks are facing increasingly ferocious protests from nature protection and citizens groups.

8. 2016 will likely also see no reductions – thanks to the low petroleum prices and colder weather so far.

Socialism and energy!

In summary Germany’s Energiewende has been an extremely costly government-intervention debacle of monumental dimensions. We haven’t seen such a large-scale industrial mismanagement since the collapse of the USSR and the German Democratic Republic. Recall that not only did their industry collapse into a heap of rubble, but they too also left huge environmental damage that we are still cleaning up 25 years later.

And no one in his/her right mind expects Germany to meet its 2020 target, let alone 2030. Other countries have to be insane (or have lots of money to burn) to follow the German example.

Well, WND has turned into another Onion and makes stuff up, take care. Erdogan is nutty enough as it is, no need to invent things. He just declared journalists and teachers terrorists, and that was real.

Sod stated, “The per capita CO2 in Germany is less than half of that of the USA. And Germany is a big exporter, so this has to be factored in again.” Your refusal to look at facts objectively when you make comparisons like that between Germany and the U.S. never ceases to amaze me.

Have you ever lived in the U.S.? You don’t think that the level of car ownership and the distances that people and goods have to travel in Germany and in the U.S. differ enormously? Have you thought at all about what just that alone means with respect to per capita energy consumption?

Did you consider that CO2 emission per capita is at least to some extent a function of population density (Germany: 229 cap/km^2; U.S.: 33 cap/km^2 – 2010 figures)?

sod 17. März 2016 at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Reply
“Germany has increased its electricity export from 2014 to 2015 by 40% and is earning a lot of money with it.
You have to compensate for this, if you want to look at CO2 output. ”

True, but Germany imports millions of tons of solar cells and wind turbine parts which are produced using coal power in China, causing enormous pollution in Beijing.
You have to compensate for this, if you want to look at CO2 output.

“Germany Imports of goods and services as percent of GDP: For that indicator, The World Bank provides data for Germany from 1970 to 2014. The average value for Germany during that period was 25.94 percent with a minumum of 16.24 percent in 1972 and a maximum of 40.04 percent in 2012. ”http://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Germany/Imports/

Please, sod, make sure you eat fatty fish, lots of meat, grass fed butter. Your brain has shriveled up due to lack of Vit. B12.

It “always” has been. It was in the text books of the 1970’s that German per-capita energy consumption was about half of that of the USA. And there’s no single, simple reason why that is the case. It is a whole lot of factors.

The problem is that Germany exports surplus power when the wind is blowing hard or the sun is shining strongly. That is, it exports “low carbon” power. However, it has to run its fossil fuel plants when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, and it has to keep them on standby as spinning reserve when there is a chance or reasonable certainty of a rapid decline in renewables output (e.g. as sunset or a weather front approaches). Your idea that rising exports accounts for higher CO2 is wrong.

Your media are like ours under control of the Total State / the oligarchs so nothing of consequence will be reported, except for the blogs – as it is now. Oligarchs want giant theft schemes. The stoopid little Greens are their unpayed water carriers.

applying linear regression to the data for the last 7 years, one finds that if the CO2 emissions continue to increase at their current rate, they will achieve their 2020 target in 2145, and their 2050 target in 2256.

Of course, since the rate of decrease in emissions is itself decreasing, those dates are probably wildly optimistic. But since CO2 is not a dangerous pollutant, we can still be relieved, …except for the phenomenal squandering of resources to accomplish virtually nothing.

“Stop Coal” That’s a hoot. The more unprofitable they make nat. gas, the more cheaper coal MUST be used to make op the energy shortfall. With “renewables” (that aren’t) the more expensive, and cleaner, energy sources are being driven out of the market, exactly they opposite of what they want. Stupid Greenies!

The people of Germany need to start speaking out about all the great jobs that shifting from nuclear has caused.

In most countries like the USA, only the BIG Utilities get to profit from generating energy, maybe that will give the people of Germany an idea of just how lucky they are to be able to sell what energy they generate at a fair price, not to mention reducing the risk of a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster like Fukushima!

We have to pay 28 bn EUR in subsidies a year for the uneconomic and unreliable electricity sources solar and wind – which, under fair market conditions, would probably sell at cloes to zero because who would agree to buy something he can’t store economically where delivery is determined by the whim of nature.

So how much money per year is that per capita? That’s 350 EUR a year. A third via electricity bills, a third via higher taxes, a third via inflated product prices – as one third of elec. is consumed by us, the people, one third, by the state, and one third by the commercial sector.

And of course, this burden is carried by the PRODUCTIVE members of society alone in a welfare state, meaning, I, a working person, pay at least 700 EUR (770 USD) a year so that some other people can cash in on it. These people are generally wealthier than me, so the entire scheme is a redistribution from the poor to the rich.

So I guess you like oligarchy, plutocracy and state-controlled crony capitalism, and you don’t like free markets.

And with that, I conclude that we stand on opposite ends of the political spectrum – as I am not in favor of central planning, cronyism and theft.

And let’s make a prediction.
We see a secular drop in interest rates now into negative territory across all the West, indicating an ever decreasing profitability of ventures. Now, might it be that the cronies have overgrown the system to such an extent as time went by that they now consume ALL surpluses to keep their idiotic zombie ventures just in an upright position, forestalling Schumpeterian creative destruction (which necessitates a giant recession / crash!) – the wind turbines being the most visible symptom – like a Bernie Madoff scheme on steroids, only VISIBLE?

And guess what – this plundered system is now so incapable of making ANY advances that even a disorganized Mad Max Road Warrior tribe would be able to run rings around it? Meaning, this entire empire will necessarily fall victim to ANYONE still capable of progressing.

So, I’m waiting for it to fall. I’m waiting for the moment that the currencies collectively collapse and I can go and buy a stash of the bartering Ersatz currencies (thinking of tampons and Vodka here…) that we will use for daily purchases once that moment arrives.

You know it’s there when the Bank Holiday is declared. Look at Cyprus on a transcontinental scale.

“The people of Germany need to start speaking out about all the great jobs that shifting from nuclear has caused.” – CD

What “great jobs” were “caused” by throwing highly skilled techs out of work? And why do Germans “need to start speaking out,” unless to express outrage at the stupidity of it all.

“n most countries like the USA, only the BIG Utilities get to profit from generating energy” – CD

The US isn’t a good representative of “most countries.” And only in socialist countries are companies who provide a service deprived of the profits of their enterprise. Why is that a problem for you?

“that will give the people of Germany an idea of just how lucky they are to be able to sell what energy they generate at a fair price,” – CD

I’m sure the average German, who is himself now paying the second highest price in the allegedly civilized world for his electricity, will be thrilled to know someone (just not himself) is making a profit off that scam. What luck!

“reducing the risk of a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster like Fukushima!” – CD

Oh and another difference between USA and Germany that CapnD doesn’t know. While the USA still has local monopolies for energy providers like PG&E, Germany had successfully removed that in 2000 already. Electricity prices were dropping through competition as it should be. Then the renewables FIT started and since that time customer prices know only one direction , up, and went up 160% since. Over 16 years.

Your defense of hem doesn’t exactly help. How he could now be surprised by Germany’s stupidity, when it’s been obvious from the moment they committed to going “green,” tells me he’s got a major blind spot or two.

“President of Environmental Progress and Time Magazine ‘Hero of the Environment’…’

If he’s FOR “renewables,” then he’s part of the problem.

It depends what he thinks Germany is “stupid” for doing. If he thinks they shouldn’t have “gone green” at all, then my apologies. If he thinks Germany is stupid because they didn’t keep their emissions of non-toxic plant food down, then no apology.

I can’t find it now, but there was a great video a few years ago on a fellow celebrating earth day. He gassed up all his motorized vehicles and tools, started them, and let them run. Now THAT’S how to celebrate Earth Day, IMO.

And that calculation was done for an incandescent globe. Factor in how much less energy is used by CFCL and LED lighting and the figures are far worse (even if we allow for transmission losses which the original calculation did not)

The reaction of the CDU, SPD, Greens and Left to the sackings that they suffered last Sunday in the elections at the hnds of the AfD are not ecouraging. It sounds like “the voters have failed us” and they will not move their political positions back to embrace those of the electorate. (cue “Downfall” video.)

I’ve just watched a video of MDR TV local news for Saxony-Anhalt (from yesterday) and the Genossin newspresenter crossed live to Genosse Professor Krantz (?) in Berlin to ask him how bad the results were for Saxony-Anhalt if no government could be formed by coalition. He predicted doom if another election were held to resolve the stalemate as it would see the AfD strengthen to 35% from its current 25%.

Meanwhile, the state branch of the SPD is imploding; nearly failing to meet the 5% quota required to have any representatives in parliament.

It “always” has been. It was in the text books of the 1970’s that German per-capita energy consumption was about half of that of the USA. And there’s no single, simple reason why that is the case. It is a whole lot of factors..